“Har har har! Remember your old school’s slipshod approach to player safety and medical care? Yuk yuk yuk!”. If their high school was such a poorly-funded nightmare why do they all remember it so fondly? One minute Batom is “thoughtfully” tackling the football head injury epidemic, the next he’s chuckling over the macabre image of an injured child being lugged off the field in a wheelbarrow. What a sicko.

I know that expecting any level of consistency is asking for trouble, but if the district’s voters never pass a school levy how is it that they were able to build a new high school building? (I think it happened in Act 2).

A good writer can make a dark thing like an injured kid being carried off in a wheelbarrow funny, but Batiuk can’t. Batiuk seems like more of a sadist with the way he treats his characters at times (that aren’t Les) or the way that said characters treat each other.

Pretty sure they guy was hauled off in a wheelbarrow because he was dead…

Anyways, why is Bull taking any of this from Buck? Buck’s team won a few high school football games against Bull’s… Who cares? Bull set his high school’s rushing record and held it for 40 years, he played major college football on scholarship, he made it to an NFL training camp, he coached his once hapless high school alma mater to unprecedented success and multiple championships, and when he retired they named the high school stadium after him. What did Buck do in his life after high school? Heck, what did he do IN high school other than apparently stalk Bull and his teammates?

Cliff, Vera, Marianne, Mason, Adeela, Phil Holt, Chester, Rocky…every newer Act III character is a poorly-conceived imbecile with a ridiculously contrived and stupid back story but this asshole Buck might be the worst of the whole sad-sack-f*cking sorry lot. First he actively seeks Bull out completely out of nowhere despite not even knowing him. Then after ingratiating himself into the Bushka’s lives based on nothing more than having played football against Bull three or four times thirty-five years ago, he cruelly begins mocking his newfound pal over things involving a school he didn’t even attend. Unlike the shitty characters listed above, Buck hasn’t even brought anything to the narrative, he’s just there, being an annoying cackling jerk, which is the absolute last thing FW needs.

If BatDolt had an imagination he would have made this Buck asshole’s life just like Bull’s except slightly better in every way. He would have played for a good high school team, he would have made the NFL, he would have been appointed Supreme Athletic Director For Life, he would have won one more championship than Bull, his wife would be attractive and personable and so forth. But instead he’s just a big zero, another creaky old coot who exists as a delivery vehicle for re-hashed old gags.

“…this also happens when you don’t properly award your cartoonists. You know, like actually giving them awards, damn it, rather than justnominating them, or even worse, mentioning them as possible nominees. Do you have any idea how soul-searing that is? I mean, I don’t, because I’m a stupid athlete who failed to appreciate comic books, but it’s possible that…some of you do. And…it’s possible that some of you are on award committees.

*cough*

Did you know that my friend Les Moore had a wife who died? And–after a suitable decade of mourning of course–he married a black woman? If you don’t know this, I have all the details, if you’ll just wake up your awards ceremony board–”

“Hello? Hello? Operator, I’ve been cut off! What do you mean, ‘Yes of course!’?”

It’s sort of a vicious circle, really. The stupid bastards won’t fund the school because they don’t do good at sports which keeps them from doing good at sportsball which makes the dumb buggers vote down the school levy.

Why should a school levy pass? The high school staff is completely incompetent. Les is never there, and when he is, he hates his students. Lefty cannot do anything without Dinkle telling her what to do. The science teacher is a goofball…and so on.

It’s not simply a matter of the levy passing because of how horrible the school is at fulfilling its mission. With this strip, Batiuk seems to be claiming that Westview High, for whatever reason, has not had many if ANY budget increases since fifteen years before Bull, Les, Funky and the gang were there. That’s god damn over a half century. Westview High is apparently running with a budget from about 1965, not even adjusted for inflation.

There’s no way this school would still be operating. They would have merged it with a school in a neighboring district decades ago. Or they would have taken a serious look at exactly WHY the district didn’t want to vote for a budget increase and adjusted accordingly after only a few years of levy failures.

The only thing less funny than a joke about carrying an injured high school athlete off the field in a wheelbarrow is two old guys talking about a joke about carrying an injured high school athlete off the field in a wheelbarrow.

Be nice. Batschmuck really agonized over the punchline panel for this episode. His initial attempts:

That’s the sort of thing that happens:

— Because global warming
— Because hateful ‘talk radio’
— Because Football Cancer
— Because hidebound literalists
— Because all the comix companies that rejected Batso
— Because Hollywood

Then suddenly, Union Boy remembered all those cheapskates who wanted to hold onto a little more of their own money, rather than piss it away on something ridiculous like the public school system. Comedy gold! Let’s bring up the School Levy for the 4,372nd time!

“Our Ohio schools need money for scotch tape, pencils, sousaphones, girls’ basketball, and stretchers! Give us all your money, or I’ll shame you to death in my published, syndicated work.”